Categories
Guest Services Marketing

How design affects your church’s first impression

I like browsing the grocery store to try things I’ve never tried before. I found this fruit called a kiwi berry. It tastes like a kiwi and has the inside texture of a kiwi, but is the size of a grape with slightly tougher skin, but soft enough you can bite though – not as tough as a banana skin.

I’ve described to you a brand new experience that I had – eating a kiwi berry – but described it in the context of patterns I recognize; the taste of a kiwi, the size of a grape, the skin was softer than a banana.

As designers and project managers, we are not just creating designs but creating an experience. With that in mind, remember that our human psychology is built to recognize patterns and make correlations.  By the time you reach your adult life, almost everything you experience is filtered through a previous experience.

 

What does this mean in a design context:

If someone sends you a text message in all caps, it’s a safe assumption that they’re trying to communicate that they’re yelling. (there are exceptions when you mother-in-law has turned on caps and can’t get them the off again – hypothetically speaking…)  Bonus points for extra volume if you tag on an exclamation mark also.

I took a picture of a sign that greeted me when I walked in to visit a church. There’s no value to naming the church, but an opportunity for all of us to learn. (for the record, I asked their permission to post this picture)

For context, there is no other signage in the building. This is the only sign I see when walking in, and there are 4 of these lined up between the entrance to the building and the sanctuary.

They are in a metal frame, 3 feet tall x 2 feet wide.

 

What could this sign choice communicate?

  1. Our priority is avoiding coffee stains on our seats. Kids check-in, guest services, and restroom locations didn’t make the cut when we decided what to communicate with signs, but not spilling coffee did.
  2. WE’RE YELLING: Not only is it important, it also needs to be emphasized. It’s all capitals and ends with an exclamation mark. In most contexts, this is yelling. But Adam, it’s a design style… I get it. Leave out the exclamation mark then and use a softer font than a serif.
  3. We have this rule. For someone who is apprehensive about coming to church because ‘it’s all rules about what you can’t do,’  you’ve started their experience by reinforcing their apprehension – Not “welcome home” or “we’re glad you’re here” or “here’s what we’re about” but just yelling and emphasizing our rule.

As an alternative to this sign, my recommendation to this church is to have a sign in the cafe area that says “Please finish your beverage before going into the sanctuary.” and have an usher or greeter at the door who can ask anyone walking in with food or beverage to finish it before going into service.

This church is also going to replace these signs with wayfinding signage, pointing guests to restrooms, kids check-in, guest services, and their coffee shop.

 

Seriously, Adam?

Ok, I can hear you from the other side of my keyboard. Adam, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.

Remember: You only have one opportunity to make a first impression, and if anything that I’ve said resonates true with a visitor, it’s worth considering.

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment so we can all learn together:

 

 

Categories
Build a Team

Stop holding pointless meetings!

Have you ever surveyed the people who’ve left your volunteer team? Maybe you oversee your Social Media team or live production or digital marketing or kids or ushers (or something else). Have you ever considered that maybe some people are leaving your team, not because of the task assigned or friction with team members, but maybe they’re leaving because of pointless meetings…

I’m not saying don’t have meetings or don’t get together with your team, but the operative word is POINTLESS meetings – the meetings that make people roll their eyes, wish they’d stayed home and disengage while thinking of an excuse not to come to the next meeting.

 

How can you tell if a meeting is pointless? Ask these questions:

  • Can I communicate what needs to be said in an email?
  • Could I record a video on my phone and send it by text message and have the same impact?
  • If I quit, would the person who takes over for me hold this meeting or find another way to communicate this information?
  • Is there a hands-on reason we need to be in a physical location together? (like new equipment, or new location, etc)
  • Have I asked a few team members that I trust if this needs to be a meeting?

 

Most of the time, especially in the world of technology that we live in, we can find alternative ways to get information to people who need it. Here are a few alternatives for a pointless meeting:

  1. Create a facebook group for your team: Post information when it needs to be communicated and don’t let anyone in who isn’t part of your team – this is a closed group for team members only and for information as it relates to your team. Build relationships in the group by welcoming new team members, posting about birthdays and mix in some topics or pointers that would usually show in a team meeting. People can see it at their convenience and comment or as a question as needed.
  2. Post a live video in the group: Team members can hear and see you expressing what needs to be said, watch it back at their convenience and ask questions as you’re live.
  3. Send an email with information or a link to a private YouTube video: Some team members don’t have or use Facebook? No problem. Send them an email.
  4. Send text messages: see above… use multiple angles to reach people. Not everyone checks their email regularly and sometimes spam filters really get in the way of important information.
  5. Phone Call: Yep, I said it. Sometimes the information you want the whole group to hear is actually only applicable to one or two people. Don’t waste everyone else’s time, and if you know someone is going to have a ‘difficult’ reaction to what you need to communicate, give them the courtesy of a private conversation.
  6. If you really need to have a short meeting when everyone is together anyway. Take 10 minutes before or after a service on a Sunday, rather than 60 minutes on an evening where everyone has to make a separate trip.
  7. Go ahead and have a meeting, but don’t make it pointless. Use the meeting to share breaking news that nobody else has. Give away prizes, celebrate your team, and give them a reason to want to come back next time. Create such a fun environment that people are disappointed when they have to miss a meeting. Not everyone will be at the meeting, so you’ll need to send an email after to people who had to miss. Don’t make people wish they skipped the meeting and just looked for the email the next day.

Find an alternative to pointless meetings, because your pointless meetings may be a reason your team isn’t growing.

Avoiding pointless meetings is one of the ways I’ve built a volunteer team that grows itself. If you’d like to learn more about that, download my free ebook here: The Pigs Are On The Runway!

 

 

 

What are some of the ways you avoid holding pointless meetings? Leave a comment below so we can all learn!

 

 

 

 

Categories
Build a Team

Build a volunteer team that grows itself

It’s never fun when a volunteer doesn’t show up, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Less than a year ago, if someone quit or didn’t show up, it was too easy for me to get overwhelmed, BUT by the end of last year, my team had grown from 18 to 35 volunteers, and I only trained 10 of them – the rest were trained by existing team members.

Now I’m not scrambling to cover missing positions AND trying to recruit and train new team members.

If you build confidence, your team will grow itself.

I know, it’s crazy, but I found a way to implement 9 steps to give my team the confidence they needed to recruit and train new team members on their own. The good news is, with these 9 steps in mind you can easily implement every step a week for 9 weeks and start to see results.

Imagine 2 months from now when someone on your volunteer team says to you “By the way, I asked this person to join our team and they’re trained, so go ahead and put them on the schedule.”

This year, we’re on track that more team members will be trained by existing team members than I’ll train myself, and I promise it’s not rocket science. Those pigs can fly, but you’ve got to do these 9 steps to get them off the runway.

Categories
Advertising Church Marketing Ideas Social Media

7 free ways to advertise your Christmas Concert

Christmas is an exciting time for churches.  It’s one of the easiest opportunities to bring a friend or family member to “Come hear little Johnny sing…”  Not only will a friend hear Johnny sing, but they’ll hear music they’re familiar with, be reminded of the Christmas story, and have an evening out.

Each church’s goals for their Christmas concert are different: Some use it as an opportunity to get people who haven’t been to their church in the building to see what it’s like to be there, some for showcasing talents that otherwise are unnoticed, and others use it as an opportunity to reach people with the Gospel.

(side note: Clearly defining your goal will help you and your team make decisions about the concert.)

So you’ve decided what your goal is, music is picked, program is set and now you need to find ways to get people in the door. On a personal level, I believe the best opportunity is word of mouth.  It’s relational and the most likely to succeed, plus if you can encourage your members to invite a friend at the easiest time of year for them to get a “Yes” then they’ll be encouraged to continue it the rest of the year. Most of these methods depend on word of mouth, and the others will support it in some way.

Here are some free ideas:

 

1) Create a Facebook Event:

Create a Facebook event with your concert poster image, invite your members and request that they invite their friends.  Leading up to the concert, post images and videos of rehearsals, warm ups, set design, lighting setup and whatever else is going into the concert.  People love seeing behind the scenes of how something is put together and this will get them excited about coming to the concert.  If they like or comment on a photo in the event, it will get shared on their wall (depending on privacy settings) and their friends will be able to join the event too.

A bonus feature to clicking the ‘going’ button on a Facebook event is that they’ll get a reminder when that event is coming up.

 

2) Design images that members can use to invite their friends:

This has worked really well for us before.  Make 4 or 5 email and social media friendly image (ie. smaller than 1000px by 1000px and less than 100K) that they can forward or post on their own social media channels. (You can download 5 pre-made templates that we used for FREE here)

The upside to creating multiple images is that people can choose the 1 or 2 that they think would best suit them.

Using the same background, have one that says ‘Would you join me for an evening of Christmas Music?” and another that says “It’s a Christmas Concert! What are you waiting for?!”

 

3) Send out 2 mass emails:

The First Email:

The first email goes to your members – this can be 4 or 5 weeks before the concert.  Include the images above, a link to the Facebook event and encourage them with some ideas on who to invite.

Not sure who it invite? Here are some ideas:

Your Boss / Manager / Employees

The last client you did business with

The most recent supplier you made a purchase from

The neighbor on either side of your house

Your Building Superintendent

A Coach or instructor from  music lessons/sports/the gym

That cousin you’ve been meaning to take for dinner for a while

You get the picture. This is more of a way to spur ideas than a checklist.

The Second Email:

The second email goes out 2 weeks before your concert.  This is an email list of people who have visited your church at least in the past 12 months.  This could simply say “You’re invited.” with the images/concert poster. This may just be the opportunity they need to find an excuse or an opening in their schedule to come back for another visit.

 

4) Run a “Who are you inviting?” campaign:

Using your already existing Facebook/twitter/youtube/Instagram/snapchat following for your church, post the images created to be sent out in the email and ask people to share them to invite others.  Literally, ask people “Who are you inviting?”  As they respond, it will create ideas for other people to share.  Put up posters through your building, in the parking lot, in the bulletin, during announcements, etc. to push this idea that everyone can invite someone.

Remind your members that statistically, 4 out of 5 people will say no, so if they ask 1 person who says no, they can keep asking others. Have everyone set a goal to ask 5 people, and a very high percentage of them will get at least one “Yes.” Just because someone said no, doesn’t mean they don’t like the church.  Maybe they have a family function, aren’t feeling well when you asked, or simply aren’t interested.  That’s fine – find the 4 others on your list to ask.

Take this a step further if you choose and create postcards that can be sent out.  Everyone brings 5 addresses of people they would like to invite.  You print the postcards, they put on the address and then you pay the postage to mail them.

 

5) Craigslist and online event calendars:

It takes only a few minutes, it’s free and you can often add some pictures and tell what your concert will be like.

6) Use your church property as signage:

Your church may have a sign already lit up front, others may not.  People drive by that property all the time and may or may not realize you’re there.  A sign will let them know you’re there, let them know about the Christmas concert and give a landmark for when they choose to come to the concert (ie. Coming to the concert? We’re the ones with the 4 storey Red Banner on Main Street.)

It doesn’t have to be a traditional sign on posts on the road.  It could be painting the windows of your building to advertise the event, covering over an existing sign, using trees or bushes to string a sign across (with a string of lights, of course) or one of those rental signs with an arrow and blinking lights.  Start with the “What if?” and work your way to what matches your concert goal and budget.

You could also give your people yard signs for their lawn, posters for their HOA clubhouse or common space in their work or to hang in their front windows for people to see.

 

7) Give your members a “What’s In It For Me?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say “We did this big event and advertised it and our own members didn’t even come.” and the reason is, they didn’t hear about the “What’s in it for me” factor.

Make it clear why this is an event worth attending.  Let them know internally (ie. during a service) so they’ll see the benefit of coming themselves and bringing a member.  This will be dependant on your concert goal.

Some ideas: Pastor will be singing a solo, the kids will be singing 3 songs (This is great for opening the door to bringing relatives), we have our full choir singing, we’re doing multimedia and video with every song, renting fog machines and lights, live animals, entirely composed in house, live band, etc.

Maybe their “What’s in it for me?” is an opportunity to serve.  Someone may be a great singer, but not have the time in their schedule to be a part of the worship team, but they could sing for this concert.  Others may love outreach, and would be happy to serve hot chocolate and apple cider after the concert and talk with the new people while some may love to decorate and be willing to help with set design or decorating the building.

When your members see a reason to be excited to come themselves, they’ll talk about it and invite others too.

 

Have another idea not on this list? What has worked for you before? Share your idea in the comments below!

 

 

Categories
Branding Podcast

Podcast: How to be known for something with Mark MacDonald

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This week’s Social Media tool – HemingwayApp.com:

Try it our for free here!

 

Our Guest is Mark MacDonald: Be Known For Something

 

 

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Categories
Marketing Podcast

How to attract a specific demographic to your church: Podcast

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This week’s tool – Free Headline Analyzer from CoSchedule:

Here’s what the analysis looked like for this posts’s headline:

 

Try our the FREE headline analyzer here!

Brian asked about attracting men to your church.  Here are a few ideas:

  • Consider this the way you would consider any other demographic.  There are high-level needs we all have (to feel connected, to feel part of something, build relationships, etc.)
  • Create events where people can come a build relationships outside of your church service (include an invite to your church service, and be sure to include the ‘why’)
  • Create services specifically for that demographic (For men, Fathers Day for instance, and events with kids are always great for inviting family members – cousins, uncles, grandpas, etc.)

Have a church communications question you’d like answered? Ask it here.  We’ll reply to all of them and pick a few for our podcast!

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Categories
Advertising Church Marketing Ideas Marketing Podcast Social Media Website

Podcast: How do we use our church advertising to attract a younger demographic?

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This week’s Church Marketing tool:

 

Faith Engine offers an entire library of content that has been proven to create engagement across multiple churches Social Media channels, in various locations and reaching many different demographics.  What sets Faith Engine apart, is that it is also a scheduling tool.  You can choose your content (like images, quotes or scriptures) then choose your social media channel (like Facebook or twitter) and let the scheduler know what day and time to post.

You’ll also notice that Faith Engine offers date-specific recommendations like famous quotes on those speaker’s birthdays, holidays, and calendar dates (like the first day or Spring or St. Patrick’s day).

Usually, Faith Engine is available to try for 7 days, but they are giving a special offer to our Church Marketing Ideas family with a complimentary 14 day trial.  Try it out for free here!

 

Suzette asked a question in our blog comments about our recommendation to use real pictures of your church in your advertising to properly represent your church. If you use pictures of young families, but your church doesn’t represent that, then you will have broken trust with anyone thinking they’re coming to meet young families.

But the question then is, how can you attract new young families, if your advertising is based on your current church demographic?

I would recommend advertising about who you are as a church – what are your convictions, your desires and your current initiatives to impact your community? These common causes will transcend demographics.  People will be attracted to a common cause.

Then, create and advertise events specifically targeted to young families: A fair in the parking lot, a costume party alternative to Halloween, a preschool reading club or a stay-at-home Mom’s group for instance.  In each case, give some information about the initiatives your church is involved in, and how someone attending this event can participate in the next.

Take pictures during your event, and as more people come to be connected with future events and participate at your church, include those pictures in your next event or website advertising.  Soon, your advertising will match the demographic at your church as you work towards generation diversity.

 

Have a church communications question you’d like answered? Ask it here.  We’ll reply to all of them and pick a few for our podcast!

 

 

 

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Categories
Advertising Branding Marketing Podcast Social Media Tools

Podcast: Can we duplicate content across Social Media Channels?

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This week’s tool: Open-Edit-Print.com

 

Church Graphics… Simplified Save Time. End Frustration. Attract Visitors.Get Unlimited Access to Done-for-you Media and Graphics for Email, Social Media, Worship Slides and Print Promotions. Get a free trial here!

 

Stacey asks about which Social Media channels to be on to connect with a young demographic, and if cross posting is a good idea:

  • Facebook is still the largest user base, so don’t let it go.
  • If you’re using Facebook consistently and seeing growth, reach a younger demographic on instagram or twitter – both have it’s perks as far as content and strategy.
  • Maximize the strengths of each platform (twitter is real time, instagram is image driven)
  • Send a consistent message across each platform, but it doesn’t have to be an identical message.
  • It’s cool to cross-post. Some people prefer one channel over another, so they won’t know you’re cross posting.  Other people will see the same post, but at different times or in a different context.

Have a church communications question you’d like answered? Ask it here.  We’ll reply to all of them and pick a few for our podcast!

 

 

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Categories
Marketing Podcast Tools Website

How to get your church ranked in Google Search results for SEO

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This week’s tool:

Free resources from Life.Church in Oklahoma – message graphics, scripture images, audio and video for Adults, Youth and Kids. Each week, this is our go-to tool to find the scriptures our Pastor used on Sunday, and schedule those graphics through the week on Facebook, twitter and instagram.

 

 

Nicole asked about increasing her church’s website ranking in Google.  Here are a few ideas:

  • There are a lot of ‘buzz words’ in Search Engine Optimization (SEO: Basically optimizing your website to appear as high as possible in search engine results, like Google, Yahoo, bing… )
  • Nicole asks about how to setup meta tags. Meta tags used to be important with how Google decided how to rank your site, but since someone can put in meta tags that say things completely unrelated to your websites content, Google has (multiple times) adjusted their search parameters.
  • 2 things to focus on: New content and how long people stay on your site.
  • My recommendation is writing a blog. The ongoing content will help Google see your site is being updated, show more content for Google to show and when someone comes to your blog to read about one topic, they may stay to read about others.

 Want to learn more about Search Engine Optimization directly from Google?

Here are 173 video from Matt Cutts (Google’s spokesperson on SEO) on youtube.

Have a church communications question you’d like answered? Ask it here.  We’ll reply to all of them and pick a few for our podcast!

 

 

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Categories
Advertising Guest Services Social Media

Using Social Media to get new church guests in your door

One of the reasons (if not THE reason) that Social Media is so popular and engrained in our culture is that humans have a need for interaction, engagement and relationship, and too often I hear of social media managers at churches saying “I just want to use my page / account / channel to let people know what’s going on” – basically, they’re saying “I want to broadcast”.

Here’s a timeline I see over and over:

Broadcast information about an event > Pay to Boost the broadcast post > No guests show up, just our members > Paying was a waste of money > Broadcast information about next event

 

But what if we created a social media model centered around relationships.  There are 2 types of relationships that we can leverage: Existing and potential.

Existing Relationships:

Outside of Social Media, there are these real life people (I know, sometimes hard to wrap your mind around) who have real-life friendships.  I’m not knocking friends who have met on Facebook, but there are relationships and connections that you have with people all around you that happened outside of social media and are strengthened through that connection.

Give you current people the tools to invite their friends, family, co-workers or neighbors on Social Media. Here are some ideas:

  • For Easter or Christmas, usually 3 weeks ahead, we send out an email blast to all of our members with 5 or 6 images that act as invites to our Easter weekend or Christmas Eve services.  They are worded to be coming from the person that posts them, not our church, like ‘Would you join me at Easter?’ or ‘My family would love to celebrate Easter with you!’ or ‘Send me a private message, and I’ll save a seat for you.’  This gives our people an easy image to share that has all of the elevate details.  Some people will post to Facebook, twitter or instagram and others will send them as a text message or in an email.
  • We create images that say something about being welcome at Life Church. Often “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you’re welcome at Life Church.” When people share them to their personal profiles for their friends, it’s so open ended that it often start discussions for them, either publicly or privately and sometime IRL (…in real life…).

 

Potential Relationship:

Create ads or event-based posts to be focussed on the opportunity to build relationships. Even in our connected, digital culture, there are lots of people who are lonely, and looking for people to build friendships with.  When creating content for the purpose of promoting the opportunity to build relationships, give clear details and a simple way to respond.

  • Love riding your motorcycle? We’re riding on Saturday morning at 8am leaving from Life Church.
  • Moms: If your infant was choking would you know what to do? Learn with other moms at our CPR class Thursday, 10am at Life Church.
  • COFFEE SHOP GRAND OPENING: Bring this coupon for a free coffee! (have people from your church hanging out at your new coffee shop to talk with people in line or sitting in the seats and introduce themselves, etc.)

Using Facebook targeting, you can target people in certain geographic areas, with certain interests, age groups and relationship statuses (ie. married, single engaged) and this is the best way to narrow down your audience to someone who may connect with what you’re offering. (Click here for more about that…)

Outside of ads, use Social to connect with other organizations and businesses to spread your awareness:

  • Thanks to XYZ restaurant for catering staff lunch today!
  • These guys are fast! Our Air Conditioning wasn’t working this morning at Church and they had to fixed before service started.  THANK YOU!
  • Share or RT or Like posts about other events in your community – maybe from other non-profits or worthy causes promoted by businesses – to get exposure for your church.

Here is a Facebook live video I did on our Church Marketing Ideas Facebook group

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rkChVp-xzs

I would love to hear what’s worked for you to attract new guests with Social Media.